


Glistening Gold

by januarywren



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Creepy Snoke (Star Wars), Dark Fantasy, Dark Reylo, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Jakku, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Redemption, Manipulation, Mythology - Freeform, No Smut, Obsession, Obsessive Kylo Ren, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Kylo Ren, Possessive Kylo Ren, Protective Kylo Ren, Rey Needs A Hug, Reylo Charity Anthology, Romance, Scavenger Rey (Star Wars), Slow Burn, Soulmates, Tengu, True Love, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Young Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23465989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/januarywren/pseuds/januarywren
Summary: Apprenticed to the god Snoke, Kylo forms a tentative bond with Rey, a scavenger from Jakku. Kept a world away from him, Kylo swears to protect her. Their bond is a precious secret, one that becomes the center of Kylo’s world, as Rey matures. Yet, with every day that passes, both of them find themselves wanting more.Created for Reylo Charity Anthology Volume 2 | Tengu!Kylo x Scavenger Rey
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65
Collections: Reylo Charity Anthology: Volume 2





	Glistening Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Rey deserves the world, and I just want to write stories giving it to her.
> 
> *Stories where _Kylo_ gives it to her. 
> 
> I was incredibly excited to be apart of the Reylo Charity Anthology project, a wonderful collaboration between reylo authors, to raise money for charity. Thank you so much to anyone who donated, and to the mods for Jeeno, Celia, and Yam for running the project, as well as creating it in the first place. 😍❤

She was his to covet.

The little scavenger from Jakku. 

Her light called to him; ever flickering in the night. She was behind his eyes; her fingers digging into his nerves, his _mind_ , not letting go.

He wouldn’t let her.

She was his to devour; her warmth, her light drawing him in. His to possess and steal from the world.

Every breath she drew was his; every day she lived was his gift, as he longed for them to become one. His fingers curled into fists, his nails cutting into the flesh of his palms.

There was discord between them, an off-tune harmony that demanded their souls to entwine around another. They were meant to become one; beyond faces and names, instead entangled together.

It was a dream that could never be, as long as his Master lived.

He snarled, aware of the light above him exploding, and glass falling. His temper was unabated, his thirst merciless. He wanted all of her.

“ _You feel compassion for her_ …”

His Master’s words haunted his soul.

Kylo sneered, his nerves thrumming with heated life.

He'd slaughtered his Master, Snoke falling like a rabid dog at his feet. She'd been with him then, her hands about his lightsaber, her power entwining with his. It'd been blood lust unabated; her first kill.

For him.

She’d thought it a dream, his silly girl. She’d tossed beneath the covers, wrapping them about her until she screamed, somewhere in her soul knowing it was real. He hadn’t been able to shield her completely; one of Snoke’s guards sinking their club into her shoulder, as she flickered in and out of view.

Her fingers lived there, curled about the crook of her shoulder. She ran her thumb against the outline of tender flesh, feeling the jagged outline. “ _Just a dream_ ,” she whispered, over and over again.

A dream that had marred her in reality, an oozing wound wrapped about her forearm. It was the only time that Kylo would allow his scavenger to be harmed.

He would never have another master, and neither would she. He had no illusions of making her his apprentice, nor a desire to have her on bended knee. 

He crooned to her as she slept, his hands wrapped about fistfuls of her hair. “I’m coming, little scavenger,” He whispered, gazing down at her. She flickered out of view, leaving nothing behind but the faintness of her warmth, one that never left her. “I’m coming.”

* * *

For years, he has allowed her to linger in the wastelands of Jakku.

He remembers the first time she appeared in his dreams; a crying child, drowning in loneliness. Her light had been a mere wisp then, muddied by pain and fear.

Heartbreak, in one so young, had made the beat inside him raise its great maw, saliva dripping from its canines. “ _My p-parents_ ,” she’d cried, and he’d taken her into his arms as if she were his equal.

“ _Shush_ ,” he’d murmured with a gentleness many would have thought beyond him. It was mere days after he’d murdered his father; a test, Snoke declared, one that he had surpassed.

He felt no regret, no grief at the death of his father.

The words that he’d said - the feeling of being torn apart - were ones he’d spoken in truth. It was a tightness in his chest, bile in his soul that had been relieved when he’d watched Han Solo fall.

He felt it again as he coddled the girl, burying his head against the crook of her delicate shoulder. He felt the outline of her collarbone and knew that he could snap her neck in a moment if he wished.

Yet he didn’t, no —

The very thought repulsed him.

Her memories were sinking into him; forcing him to feel the burn of her feet as she’d sank into the hot sand, watching with stinging eyes as the aircraft disappeared.

“ _They’ll b-be back_ ,” the girl warbled. “ _T-They’ll-_ “

He didn’t ask her to cease her cries; instead, he held her tighter, his hands finding the small of her back. He rubbed circles there, his claws dull against her tattered rags. He saw her then, older and with a feral elegance, the same as the creatures that roamed the desert around them. She wielded a staff in her hand, the same as he did his lightsaber and moved with a striking grace; before she saw someone — and her eyes filled with a warmth that he’d never known, one that was as warm and bright as the sun above.

He swallowed harshly, forcing the vision away.

“ _What is your name, little one_?”

She cried harder; her choked answer one he barely heard. “ _R-Rey_.”

She knew nothing of the warnings; the dangerous sin of giving a god your true name. She was the first one to tell him, the first one to _trust_ him, as she grabs fistfuls of his cape. Her hands were too little to crease the ocean of fabric; her fingers too swollen to pull it to shreds.

‘ _Rey_.’

He tasted her name, honey pooling in his mouth. He knew then, the waif is real.

She was between the world of dreaming and reality, the one where creatures like him reside. He was a god there, rivaled only by his Master, and the knights that clamor for his position around him. It was no place for a girl like her, one who would turn to wisps of herself in a moment, if left to linger there.

He knew then that he couldn't have her, not when she was young and uncorrupted. His world would devour her in a moment if he spirited her away.

“ _Rey_ ,” he said. Her name turned the bond between them to fire, blazing inside of his veins. “ _I’m here for you sweetheart. Always_.” 

  
  
He gave her his name in return, drawing it on her skin. _Kylo_.

He held her until he awoke.

When he did, he smashed the windows of his rooms through, with his fists. He couldn’t take her, not then, hiding her away in his apartments. He sneered at his bloodied fist.

  
  
The god of hate, of envy and petty slights, could do nothing.

  
  
Nothing but wait, and raze everything, and everyone away. He forges himself into the creature that Snoke envisioned; burning the lines of morality and shrouds his future in darkness. He allows himself to be used; to change.

  
  
Everything he was, everything he would become, was for the girl with tear-stained cheeks.

His light. His life.

  
  
“ **Rey**.”

  
  
He knew he would burn himself anew for her.

* * *

At his ascension, he chose the tengu as his form.

They are wild, bird-like creatures that are insatiable with greed. They carve out the world; using the pyres of fallen history to make their nests. It’s never enough. They are ruined by their desires; their salvation found in possession.

The gods have limited their numbers, disbarring them from being chosen. Snoke is the last of the gods to represent the tengu; his smoldering amber eyes with rings of crimson defining him.

And now, they defined him too. 

He couldn’t be denied.

Hate pulsed inside of every world, amidst every heart. The gods are no exception, weak to their feelings, weaker still to their passions.

“ _Tsk, tsk_ ” Snoke murmured in his ear. He feels his master’s amusement at their manipulations; the ease of Kylo’s ascension. Their throats are soon filled with thickened laughter.

His, the loudest of all.

Snoke gives him his own knights. Their armor reflects their calling to the night; lithe and black, their masks reflecting him. He smiled; his teeth gleaming. His thirst was demanding now, avarice coursing through his veins.

He spread his wings and screamed to the skies above.

* * *

Rey’s life was defined by him.

He was one of Unkarr Plutt’s orphans, Jyn, showing her where she could be safe: an abandoned AT-TT craft. It could be her home, he whispered, somewhere safe while she waited. She told him about her parents as soon as he’d given her his portion, the first kindness anyone had shown her on Jakku.

She drew back hesitantly, kicking at the sand.

“ _Are you waiting for someone too_?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he replied. She was too young to see the longing in his eyes.

He brought her a seedling, one clinging to life with its little, green sprouts before he disappeared. It grew despite the lack of water, Rey crooning to it at night, as she keeps a tally on the wall of the days spent waiting.

“ _Soon_ ,” she promised, her toothy smile as brilliant as the desert sun. “ _My parents will come for me_.”

She'll take the plant with her when they do.

He was the rising sun when morning came, bathing her in his rays. She became lean and tan beneath his gaze; freckles brushed across her cheeks. Her stomach ached and her ribs constantly break, as she learned which footholds are weak, and how tight to pull her ropes. He was beside her during the night and the day, his thoughts revolving around her.

He was the man in her dreams; holding her and letting her heal in the moonlight. He fed her berries by hand and let her lap water from his crystal glass. She awoke with faint headaches; never quite able to put her finger on what she dreamed of.

There’s a reason why she’s luckier than the other scavengers, able to fit into smaller spaces, and developing an instinct for what tattered scraps will feed her the most. Perhaps the reason is the same as why she can’t remember her dreams — Rey knew better than to dwell on it, adopting the attitude many scavengers had to what they couldn’t change. She had to focus on her survival, knowing that any day her luck could change.

Kylo watched as her dreams changed with her age; indiscriminate shapes and colors becoming solid.

Memories.

Pain.

He held it in his hands and smoothed it away; unraveling her fright of starvation and intervening when she tumbled from a rotted aircraft. Her ropes snapped as she fell, her lag catching on sheets of loose metal. She screamed as her bone snapped, and the metal embedded in her skin before Kylo drew near. He kissed her tears from her cheek and allowed his warmth to sink into her skin, knitting skin and bone back together.

He took the memory from her, when he laid her in her hammock, and placed her repaired ropes near her. He wouldn’t let his Master see her, keeping her a secret from him. Snoke had little right to know of his love, Kylo reasoned, knowing she was no threat to him. (She _wasn’t_.)

(She was.)

* * *

He wanted to make her world his.

He was Matt, the man with a talent for repairing and racing speeders that rivaled her own.

He raced over the dunes with her, laughing as the wind whipped through their hair. He was the one to hide with her in a cave made of sandstone when the storms come, keeping them there for days. He shared water from his pack with her, while she shared a portion with him.

“ _You aren’t alone, Rey_.”

Her hand touched his cheek. “ _Neither are you_.”

His eyes fluttered closed, as everything about her sang to him, drawing him in.

She gave him her first kiss; her lips chastely meeting his. Her cheeks burned as he held her, peppering her cheeks, her nose, and her forehead with tender kisses in return. “ _Sweet one_ ,” He whispered, his fingers entwining through hers. “ _You’ll never truly be alone_.”

He took nothing else from her, the feeling of her lips against his one he remembered without hesitation.

* * *

Later, he was the woman in the market when Rey is turned away from Plutt’s counter.

She angered the mangled beast, by following the innate voice inside that whispers not to trust his shifty eyes, and sweaty touch. His hands linger on hers when he pushes her rations across the counter, and she nearly starves herself, staying away from the outpost. He knows she has little water left, and only a handful of rations.

She looks for someone to trade with, and he takes advantage of the fact. He approaches her, offering three jugs of water and rations that will last her a week. She’s wary of him, yes, but desperate enough to accept his offer, even though she knows it’s worth more than what she gives him — the gnarled old woman — in turn.

“ _You need it_ ,” he said, and she thanked him with a muddled warmth in her eyes.

It’s a scene that he repeated countless times, taking different forms each time; a Twi-lek, Wookie, even a traveling Jawa that Rey reluctantly traded with. Jakku sinks its claws into its inhabitants slowly, forcing them into ruthless survival until they have nothing left. They cannot dream, they cannot love, they cannot live as they wish.

They can only survive, until the day they don’t wake up anymore.

He wonders how much longer she’ll last —

How much longer _they’ll_ last, without one another.

* * *

The lines were blurring between dreams and wake, their lives intently entwining.

  
  
She was beginning to remember, as she wakes, a man who comes to her every night. A man who whispers promises in her ear; his knuckles tracing her cheek. If she touched her cheek, she felt his warmth still.

And the god who visits her in her dreams is haunted in return.

Her screams wrenched him from training —

His knight takes advantage of his weakness; smashing their baton into his ribs until they cracked. His kind will take advantage of everything they can, their canines gnashing, and drool dripping down their chin. Kylo snarled, shoving the knight back with a snap of his wrist.

  
  
And then he was gone, with Rey in his arms.

  
  
“ _Kylo_?” She croaked, blinking up at the bewildered figure. His name is in her head; ripped from her dreams. She’s backed into a corner, now pulled into his lap, with blood pooling between her legs. “ _W-What’s happening to m-me_?”

He blinked rapidly.

  
  
It was more than a dream, and less than a nightmare. It was real.

She used their bond to call him there, as she cries with fright. The motherless girl from Jakku thought she was dying; not knowing about changing bodies or adulthood. She only knows survival, and when confronted with terrifying death, she called for him.

  
  
His chest ached.

  
  
“ _You’re safe, Rey_ ,” He crooned as he slipped off his cloak, enveloping her in it. He unwound his cowl from his neck and ripped it into strips, his clawed fingers merciless with the silk material. “ _You’ve just come of age_.”

  
  
Her lower lip trembled, bleeding as her teeth pulled at her skin. “ _F-For what_?”

His hand grazed her lip, stilling her teeth. His mind brushed with hers, skimming through murky curiosity and stuttering fear. She should have had her courses years before then but had been too malnourished to. As he explained menstruation to her, he saw flashes of thought: children, as young as she’d been when he’d dreamt of her, a glimpse of a couple she’d followed, curious as they held hands-

  
  
He shuddered as she whimpered.

  
  
“ _Shh_ ,” Kylo murmured, gently sopping up the blood with a strip of fabric. There were enough of them to last her through her course; and-

  
  
His breath caught.

  
  
Their bond was growing, as he laid his hand against her stomach. His fingers were long, covering her mid-section, and radiated warmth. He couldn’t take her with him, entangling her in immortality. Nor could he stay there, with Snoke prowling in wait. He leaned forward, kissing her clammy forehead.

  
  
He would bring her more fabric with every course, taking from his own clothing. He wasn’t aware of how often she would have her courses; not until he could have her with him and regulate her health. What he brought her in her dreams wasn’t enough, he knew as he saw the gauntness of her cheeks.

  
  
“ _Wait for me, little one_ ,” He crooned, taking her pain into him. It was the art of the darkness he studied; the ability to take the pain on to himself or inflict the pain he was feeling on to another host. It was a parasitic form; one few used for healing. “ _I’ll come back soon_.”

  
  
Her eyes fluttered as she nodded drowsily.

* * *

She awoke with her head pounding

  
  
_cinnamon-_

  
  
Her nose scrunched.

  
  
_leather and sunlight-_

_  
_  
The call of her dreams enveloped her, as she snuggled deeper into something soft.

  
  
“ _A gift_ ,” someone whispered, combing their fingers through her tangled buns. She cooed at their touch, the touch-starved child that she was. “ _For you, Rey_.”

In the morning she found herself wrapped in an onyx cowl, one that smelled like _him_ ; the one from her dreams.

* * *

Time flickered slowly for him.

  
  
He was unchanging in his nature, his barren soul still as he watched over her. She was changing before his very eyes; aging as the months passed.

The vision he’d had, the one when she found her way to his arms as a child, seemed to be closer with every passing day. Her dreams brought them together every night, her desires turning to something more than portions, more than the comfort of his words, his touch —

She was becoming older, resembling the woman that Kylo had seen in his vision.

Yet Rey was more than his vision, more than a fantasy, as she was the child that he had bound himself to. She was his equal as their souls sang to another, the tentative bond they’d formed becoming solid, and real.

“ _Please Kylo_ ,” she whispered, her words haunting him long into the light of day. “ _Please, come for me_.”

* * *

“ _What is this_?”

He asked idly, his finger stroking the doll’s cheek.

He knew every inch of her home; from the sprouts of the seedling to the scratches on the walls and the bottles of water hidden beneath the sand. The doll was new.

The doll wasn’t from him.

He found the bond to have its limitations as Snoke encroached in his mind. He protected the memory of giving his cloak within their bond, along with every memory he had of her.

He refused for Snoke to know her, as his Master knew Leia Organa, Han Solo, and Luke Skywalker. Rey is his, in a way that she will never be to another.

Because of this, he cannot give her more than his cloaks, and slips of rations while she sleeps. He wants her memory of him to be fuzzy; restrained only to the time they met, and his promise to her. She'll be safer with little knowledge of him outside the sleeping world until he can claim her. Her light is relentless; compliant as he suckles on it.

With her by his side, he could slaughter the world, if he wished.

His head bends, his nose meeting the doll’s forehead as he inhales. He tastes sand on his tongue, and the sweat of fear tinged with courage. And-

Admiration.

“ _Where did you get this_?”

He straightened and turned to where Rey peeked at her naked toes. 

She’d grown now, her limbs long and tan, but still so delicate compared to his hulking frame. She curled her hair about her finger, the color like darkened honey. He’d given her a spoonful once, in her dreams, and she’d gone slack against him while licking it clean from the spoon. It was ambrosia, she’d whispered, better than anything she’d ever tasted. “Rey,” he murmured.

She didn’t ask if she’s dreaming, or awake.

Somewhere, she knew it didn’t matter.

She could never free herself from him, the constant presence in her mind, and in her soul. It felt as if he was beside her always, even when she knew that she was in the sandy dunes, without another soul for miles around.

“ _Kylo_ — “

He loomed above her then.

His gloved hand curls about her chin, tilting her head upward. “ _Look at me, Rey_ ," He said softly, like a knife gliding across her skin. He’s gentle as he holds her chin, his hands bloodstained. He makes no secret of his nature, of his representation of hate. When he claims her, he will have her memories released.

There was no place for secrets between them.

Warm pools of amber met his solemn gaze. “ _I-I found it_.”

He knew she was lying, as her teeth sank into her bottom lip. Blood rushed to the surface as she played with the skin, tugging it back with her teeth. “Rey.”

“ _I_ -“

“ _Rey_.”

“ _I made a friend_ ,” Rey confessed, something frightful hanging in the air between them. “ _A pilot for the R-Resistance,_ _Poe_ -“

Kylo’s snarl cut her off.

_Poe Dameron_.

His snarls grow as he flicks through her memories; her defense always lowered in her dreams. Dameron had wanted her, something Rey hadn’t recognized. He was passing through Jakku to find an Oracle-

The path to Luke Skywalker.

Kylo laughed. His Uncle had always insisted on dwelling in the mortal world, reveling in his status as a beloved Oracle. A wise, rightful Oracle filled with light. A pitiful fool.

Her hands cradled his cheeks.

  
  
“ _Kylo_ ,” she whispered, bringing him from his red haze.

  
  
He wants to sneer and push her away; asking if she’d like Poe to hold her. He wouldn’t grip her wrists until she cringed, purple marks blooming on her skin. No one would hold her like this—

“ _Kylo_!”

No one but him.

She kissed his lips, her tongue tracing his bottom lip. “ _I just want you,”_ the words are heavy with want. With loneliness. He let her wrists go, encircling his arms about her waist. He pulled her small frame against him, wanting to sink into her tender heart.

“ _I just want you_ ,” she repeats, her voice cracking. “ _Y-You can’t be h-here when I’m awake, I won’t r-remember for s-sure and_ — “

She had no one, but him.

And he knew he only had her, in turn.

“ _Oh Rey_ -“ Her name catches in his throat.

He lets go of her wrists, bathing her in kisses and adoration-filled promises. He takes her wrist and caresses it with his lips, before moving to the other one, taking her bruises away. “ _I’m here_ ,” he carved the words into her skin with his touch. “ _I’ll always be here, Rey_.”

She met his gaze again.

“ _But when_ ….” Tears drip down her cheeks. “ _Will you be here_?”

_When will you stay?_

* * *

“Snoke is dead,” Kylo said, in the present again.

He was alone in his chambers, the very rooms that had belonged to his Master.

"Snoke…" he hesitated, his canines sinking into his lower lip. The words feel uncertain on his tongue until he tried again. "Snoke is dead."

He was alone, without _his_ voice in his head.

The knights had accepted him as their Master, just as Hux and Phasma had. They were crushed beneath his heel, none of them having his ability.

His purpose to rule.

He had been crowned without issue, the order recognizing his right to inherit. Snoke had named him as his heir and had allowed him to challenge him; the same as the gods before them.

“You’re safe now,” Kylo murmured, laying his gloved hand across his chest. He felt her there, the connection between them only strengthened in the light of Snoke’s death. He ached for her and felt her longing for him in turn, and he swallowed tautly.

He wanted nothing more than to hold her, nothing forbidding them from reveling in another. He would give her everything she wished, their apartments filled with blossoming life, and a doll resembling a First Order general rested on their bed. Her light was an infection he clung to, just as he knew that his darkness enthralled her.

“Rey,” he whispered.

He turned his head, hearing Mitaka’s hesitant knock at the door.

“Your orders, sir?”

The lieutenant held his cap in his hands and had a nervous tick of his jaw, one that Kylo was familiar enough with. “Ready my ship,” he ordered. “For the world below.”

* * *

It was everything her dreams had made it. It was everything that he’d seen through the eyes of another, as he’d taken the form of Matt, and Jyn, and the countless others after them.

Everything, and more, as Kylo felt despair shifting in the very sand beneath his feet.

He saw the ruined AT-TT that was her home, and as he passed through the makeshift door, he saw the wall of marks that she had made. He came to her home with his face exposed, and the beast that Snoke had made was smothered, down, down beneath the sand. He had never been able to come to her before, not in the face of Snoke, and the fire that burned within his veins.

He had no bloodlust then, no ache for words that went unsaid.

He had no lust for possibility, at the moment he saw her, asleep on the hammock she’d made. She had the stillness of one whose life had passed, the stillness that he recognized well enough.

It had come in his wake, as he came in his true self to her.

“I’ve come back for you, sweetheart,” he murmured, crossing the distance between them.

She was there, solid and real beneath his hand, as he tucked her hair back behind her ear. Her skin was kissed by the sun, a splash of freckles across her nose, and her cheeks were brushed with pink. He slid his arms around her and gathered her close.

He kissed her then, hesitantly, and sweetly as if he loved her truly.

(He did, he _did_.)

She was everything he wanted, and everything he adored, as he felt her chapped lips tremble. She was a flower in bloom, turning toward him as if he were the sun. He wouldn’t let her soul leave her, not then, as he came to take her to where she belonged.

Beside him.

“Rey,” he said, the same as a dying man their savior. “It’s safe now.”

* * *

He drew a gloved finger against her cheek, watching intently as her eyes flickered beneath her eyelids. He knew how she dreamed still, of a life spent scavenging and a constant ache in her belly. “Kylo,” she whispered.

If it had been any other, he would have taken their breath from them, for the trusting way she sighed his name.

Yet nothing, absolutely nothing, was the same when it came to her.

"Rey," he murmured and knew that she was awakening. She shifted toward him, as he sat on the edge of the bed, and she ran her cheek against his leg. He smiled crookedly at the sight, having a fleeting thought of whether she was a loth-cat, or not.

“Kylo— “

She blinked, once, twice, again.

“Is this real?”

She rested her head on his leg and looked up to him as if she wanted nothing more than for him to be real.

“I’ve taken you from everything,” Kylo said, meeting her gaze without flinching. Her light was more than he’d ever expected. His naked soul recoiled from it, the same as it longed to bury itself inside her. “You’re here, Rey.”

_With me_.

Was it enough? He felt uncertainty on his tongue, as bitter as the words that Snoke had once fed him.

Slowly, she drew her hands upward, and he found himself tensing.

“What are you doing?” he asked, the words harsher than he wanted, yet he made no move to stop her. He never would, when it came to her.

Gently, she cradled his face in her hands, as if he was something, someone, she adored. Someone that she revered. “You aren’t alone,” she said, echoing his words from years ago.

“Neither are you.”

Her words were like ginger candies fizzling on his tongue, the same as his father had given him when he was young. He had wrenched himself away from the past that bound him while kneeling at his Master's slippered feet. He'd murdered his father on Snoke's orders and watched as the Resistance crumbled. His mother was far from the woman he'd once known, the passionate and warm princess, instead, acting as a calculating and remote figurehead.

Her regime had crumbled after the death of Luke Skywalker when Kylo himself had faced the revered last Jedi. His knights had flanked him, yet he'd challenged the man alone, a confrontation that had been over a decade in the making. It wasn’t a challenge of the gods, but one between man, as they set on each other, intent on tearing the other one apart. 

The same man who'd taught him how to wield his first lightsaber knew nothing of the nights Kylo had pressed his palms against his head and begged for the voices to stop. He had never asked, nor cared as his nephew appeared with reddened eyes and clenched fists, instead, ordering him to meditate.

Ordering him away—

Away, **away** —

Kylo himself had slung the man's body over his shoulder, as he strode to the cliffside, with his knights behind them. Crimson had run from his limbs, pooling beneath his feet on the muddy ground - yet he'd felt nothing but the clench of his stomach, and bile in the back of his throat.

“ _Ben_ — _“_

His knights watched as Kylo threw the man's body into the crashing waves below before he announced that the last of the Jedi were dead.

“ _For the glory of the First Order.”_

Kylo said simply, his words carried to his Master by the harsh Ahch-To breeze.

There would be no new hope, no new beginning, for the worlds outside the First Order's rule. Nor would the boy inside of him emerge, the one whose ears had reddened at the thought of mating, and whose heart had leaped at the announcement of his parents visiting, just as he'd felt it _hurt_ with every visit they missed.

No—

He was the last of his line.

The last of his very kind, as Snoke had the First Order envelop promising Force users into the fold. The ones that survived became Knights of Ren, succeeding the ones that fell, while the others that stumbled were slaughtered the same as any squealing and writhing animal. There was no place for them in the world that Snoke had made, the world where the gods would reign.

“ _This is your inheritance_ ,” Snoke promised him once, his fingers sinking into his shoulder. “ _I will leave everything to you, Kylo, the last of the Skywalkers, the Master of the Knights of Ren. You are the rising sun I have chosen.”_

His heir, his son without kin blood.

“I won’t let you be alone,” she said, and his solemn gaze focused on her again. He wanted to drown in her earnest depths, his soul naked to her, as she recognized his innate loneliness as her own. “I promise, Kylo.”

_Rey, Rey, Rey_ -

“I promise,” she repeated, and his fingers brushed tears from her skin.

"Ben," he said as if he'd always intended to tell her. His soul was open to her, and her alone; his mate, his love, the only one who would ever bear the title of Empress. “My name is Ben.”

“ _Ben_ ,” Rey said and smiled like the sun. 

**Author's Note:**

> Chat with me: https://januarywren.wixsite.com/januarywren 🌹 
> 
> https://januarywren.tumblr.com/ 🌹
> 
> and ask for me my discord! 🌹
> 
> Beta'd by Terry (terry012227) and Dimo - thank you both for reading this, and giving me such helpful feedback! This wouldn't have been worth submitting, without you two, and I appreciate your efforts so, so very much. 🦝🖤


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